Students walk past a sign at the Keele campus of York University in Toronto, Ontario, Thursday, April 12, 2012. (Tyler Anderson/National Post)
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The Sauder School of Business, defaced following a controversial orientation-week cheer led by members of the Commerce Undergraduate Society.Reddit / Sauderite
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UBC students walking in the fog past an emergency assistance station close to where a young woman was assaulted in the 2500 block of West Mall at UBC in Vancouver, B.C., on October 22, 2013. PNG staff photo
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Spokesperson for the CLASSE, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois demonstrates in Montreal on May 22, 2012. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes
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Students with simulated wounds who participated in a mock shooting drill at Sheridan College.
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A 4chan user identified only as "Stephen" broadcasting his suicide attempt to others on the infamous message board.screengrab/liveleak
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Trinity Western University is located in Langley B.C. Monday July 29, 2013. Ric Ernst / PNG
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Canadian post-secondary campuses are alive with debate and controversy. One of the great parts of being young is that you can fail at adult tasks with little consequence. You can make bad decisions, but be offered the chance to reverse them and learn from them. But sometimes the controversies have been far more serious, reflecting dangerous trends and acts of violence on university campuses across Canada.

2013 was an astonishing year for post-secondary news, and so here we offer up the most jaw-dropping on-campus moments.

The student press is a strange beast. In many cases, their funding comes from students more than advertisers, which shelters them from the market forces affecting most print media. But it doesn’t make them immune. With falling revenues meaning more money has to come from students, the University of Windsor students’ union decided to just cancel the paper altogether.

After a huge outcry, including from some national media big-shots who once worked for the paper in their younger years, the students’ union decided to reverse their decision. But far from resolved, the spat was just the opening salvo in a long battle between the student press and financial reality.

So when Toronto Life wrote a story about how the campus was a center for sexual assault, they took it personally. They sued. In a formal statement, the president of the university said the article “presents a wholly distorted picture of women’s safety on the campus of York University.”

“Instead of spreading distortions and misinformation, Toronto Life would better serve its readers by sticking to the facts and focusing on sexual violence as a societal concern, rather than portraying this serious issue as someone else’s problem,” he continued.

Well said, especially given the theme of sexual violence that runs through most campus controversies of 2013.

2013 was the year we suddenly realized that chanting about rape is a team-building exercise for some students. At Saint Mary’s University in Halifax it all began when students were caught on video chanting about forcing sex on minors.

But it didn’t stop there. Instead of being isolated to one school, rape chants then popped up in Vancouver, too. In a report released by the University of British Columbia following their investigation, some students were quoted saying the chants were known to be inappropriate but allowed team building and a sense of community, “Like a really bad offensive joke,” “Trying to be shockingly funny.”

That sense of tradition became shockingly real a few weeks later, when…

All too quickly, students across Canada realized the jokes were a dangerous reflection of a horrible reality.

In 2012, the Montreal student protests shut down the city centre regularly, paralyzed universities and ultimately brought the government to its knees. But after it was over, some of the more ridiculous sides came out. One student says she is facing more than $6,500 in fines from being targetted by police. The charges include jaywalking, swearing, spitting on the ground, flicking cigarette ashes and “emitting a noise” in public. One ticket reads: “for having professed insults in a park.” She says police don’t even ask for her address anymore because they know it by heart.

But while police might be trying to capitalize off her indiscretions, a clothing company is trying to capitalize off solidarity with the protest movement.

In a confusing move, Ontario’s Sheridan College held a much-lauded training day which simulated two gunmen on campus. The simulation was extremely thorough, including drama students dressed as bloody victims, police acting as both gunmen and police hunting them down, and the local journalism students were invited to cover it as if it were a breaking news scenario.

But then the school had a change of heart. They decided the photos of students dressed as dead students were too disturbing and ordered them taken down from the website. The Sun is published by the school’s journalism faculty, so the administration is within its rights to censor it. But many felt the censorship was overreach.

“We’re not taking it sitting down. We were very offended by the way this played out. We all go the sense that we were being thrown under the bus a bit,” said one student.

A student willing to fight the censor? Well that sounds like a good future for journalism to us.

Less controversy and more tragedy, the University of Guelph became the focus of the national spotlight when a student decided to broadcast a suicide attempt to 200 people. While some watchers were encouraging him to seek help and not kill himself, others were suggesting more innovative ways to do the deed. In the end, he was filmed swallowing pills and starting a fire in his dorm room. The University of Guelph later issued a statement about the fire and offered counseling to those students who needed it. If nothing else, the tragic story re-started a conversation about the role of mental health services on university campuses.

It’s true. Trinity Western University, which is located just outside of Vancouver, has cleared the first hurdle to offer law degrees in the province. The proposal has been controversial due to a student code of conduct that forbids “sexual intimacy that violates the sacredness of marriage between a man and a woman.” That means no premarital sex for heterosexual couples, along with no sex whatsoever for queer students, as the school does not recognize same-sex marriage as legitimate despite it being part of Canadian law … and trying to start a law program.

The university’s president clarified that “while the University does have strong religious roots it is committed to fully and comprehensively teaching all aspects of law including human rights, ethics and professionalism.”

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